Winter 2015 - Spring 2016
Next year, I sowed Burpee Green Ice, Salad Bowl, EZ Serve and Baby Leaf Blend seeds on 11-15-15. You can see from the pictures below, 1/2 bed of lettuce seedlings pictured on 12-19-15 becomes when thinned out & transplanted by type 2 full beds of lettuce on 02-16-16. By 03-10-16, there are only about 10 heads left after we gave most of the lettuce away to neighbors & folks at work.
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Winter 2014 - Spring 2015
Lettuce is probably the easiest vegetable to grow during the winter months in Houston. Temperatures rarely get below freezing and when they do almost never go below 25 degrees. Lettuce doesn't like heat … so you have to wait until say late September / early October to plant lettuce in a Houston garden. I planted EZ Serve, Baby Leaf Blend, Salad Bowl and Green Ice seeds on 11-09-14. The photo of the lettuce pictured in the above banner was taken 90 days later on 02-01-15. From left to right you have EZ Serve, Lollo Rosa, Salad Bowl and Green Ice. All of which come from Burpee.
Lettuce seeds are so small that you can't put one seed in one hole. So when the seedlings are about 30 days old, I transplant them into other beds. This sets their development back about two weeks. By giving each seedling their own space you end up with lettuce covering 5 times the area that you originally sowed with seeds. See below for more pics from the 2014 planting. Reddish lettuce varieties such as Lollo Rosa tend to have a bitter taste. But they look great when added to the more pleasant tasting varieties such as Salad Bowl and Green Ice. Most varieties of lettuce go to seed when it gets hot. You can see the Salad Bowl lettuce has developed a flower stalk in the lower right hand picture. EZ Serve will eventually clump up into a ball … sort of like the Iceberg lettuce you buy in the grocery store … see picture on lower left. I prefer loose-leaf lettuce varieties. They seem to do better in Houston with the high humidity.
Lettuce seeds are so small that you can't put one seed in one hole. So when the seedlings are about 30 days old, I transplant them into other beds. This sets their development back about two weeks. By giving each seedling their own space you end up with lettuce covering 5 times the area that you originally sowed with seeds. See below for more pics from the 2014 planting. Reddish lettuce varieties such as Lollo Rosa tend to have a bitter taste. But they look great when added to the more pleasant tasting varieties such as Salad Bowl and Green Ice. Most varieties of lettuce go to seed when it gets hot. You can see the Salad Bowl lettuce has developed a flower stalk in the lower right hand picture. EZ Serve will eventually clump up into a ball … sort of like the Iceberg lettuce you buy in the grocery store … see picture on lower left. I prefer loose-leaf lettuce varieties. They seem to do better in Houston with the high humidity.
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